CommunicationEmpathy is being able to recognize emotions in others, and to be able to proverbially put yourself in their shoes (Mindtools, 2016). This ends up contributing to better communication in a couple of ways. The main one is that the communication is not just about yourself, that the needs of the other people in the communication are also better understood and taken into account. This is not necessarily easy -- when you're left guessing as to what someone else is thinking you'll probably get it wrong. But if you're good at this, you can be in a much better position to help people and give them the support that they need (No author, 2016).
A time when I have had a difficult time empathisizing with someone is pretty much any time. How do I know what others are feeling or thinking? If I try to guess, I usually get it wrong. Maybe that's overthinking something, but I could not have a worse track record of this. So you just don't deal with the situation. If I can't put myself in someone's shoes -- if I don't know what they are going through, I just don't deal....
There's no point. If I can understand, then that understanding comes if I see a situation and can think of a corollary situation that I've been through. That is not perfect understanding, but it is better than nothing.
If I could empathisize, I actually have no idea what I would do differently. I wouldn't know what that is like. I'm amazed that there are people out there who can understand other people's interests and emotions just like that. So what they do, I have no idea. But not being familiar with that situation I'm not sure how I would handle it. But what can you do to emphathisze with someone. The only thing I can do is ask -- I'm not going to attempt to guess because that won't end well in my experience. I can ask, and maybe listen to try to figure it out, and that's about the best I can do.
Week 5, Discussion 1
Mastery is quite the word; I'm not sure I'd go there. But I am quite good with clarity and concision (Doyle, 2016). Those are two attributes of my communication style that seem to work well. Using simple language to ensure…
